Scatter Factory – Scatter Factory (Flecktone Recordings – 2016)

23Jul

Scatter Factory is the solo project of Will Foster, a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and arranger who was a member of acclaimed art-pop band Delicatessen, as well as Top 40 hit-scoring Lodger in the 1990s. He has since written string arrangements for acts under Simon Raymonde’s guardianship, been a touring keyboardist / guitarist with Martina Topley-Bird, Brett Anderson/ Bernard Butler reunion vehicle The Tears, and Heather Nova. Since 2008, Will has been regularly touring and recording as keyboardist with The Fratellis.

Foster neatly sums up his shift in position: “I’m still in the background – but now there’s nobody else there with me.”

Suede’s Brett Anderson, with whom he toured in support of his solo album, describes Scatter Factory’s music as “beautiful stuff”. Scatter Factory is an eloquent instrumental album that manages to be both vividly imagistic and intriguingly open-ended, playing as a set piece while ranging across pastoral tranquillity, cosmic spookiness and indeterminate dread. Composed, played, produced and mixed by Foster at his home in Oxford, this album features an array of electronica, pianos, guitars and percussion, while also making imaginative use of field recordings and treated sounds.

‘Scatter Factory’ is a non-prescriptive record that poses more questions than it provides answers and artist James Marsh, renowned for his Talk Talk album covers, has responded to this with a striking, retro-futurist graphic design for the cover artwork. It’s bold and dynamic in a way that befits someone flying solo for the first time, even if they are obscured by clouds.

As of July 22, ‘Scatter Factory’ is widely available through digital stores and also as a handsome digipak CD.

TRACKLIST

Catatonic Voyage

Scatter’d

Out The Blocks

Sheepish Hello

Spartan Missile

PowWow

Plains Awash

Not There Yet (and it’s getting dark)

Mea Culpa

The album came out through Flecktone Recordings 22 July 2016 and you can order it from:

The band's first lineup featured English guitarist "Mahavishnu" John McLaughlin, Panamanian drummer Billy Cobham, Irish bassist Rick Laird, Czechoslovakian keyboardist Jan Hammer, and American violinist Jerry Goodman. McLaughlin had worked with Cobham and Goodman on his third solo album My Goal's Beyond (1971), and asked Cobham to become […]

The interview below may be a case of confirmation bias on my part, but I will admit to considering that this guy makes a great deal of sense.As a parent I do ask myself if I raised my children to have unrealistic expectations of life.The answer to that is that I have.In saying that they can be anything, and they can do anything that they want, I was telling […]